Democratic state Rep. Gordon Hintz speaks against state budget proposals in Madison. The final budget will be debated in the Assembly later this month.

The first thing to say about the budget bill that came out of the state's budget committee on June 5 is that the process stinks. After a 10-hour midday recess, the state Legislature's finance committee convened at roughly 3:40 a.m., finishing business shortly after 6 a.m.

This is no way to run a state. Both parties have been guilty of passing bills "under cover of night," but that hardly makes it better. It's a bad system, and we should demand better.

One symptom of the dysfunction is that lawmakers pack new policies into the budget bill because the measure has to pass and must balance, as a requirement of the Wisconsin Constitution. As a result, the bill that came out of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, which writes state spending policies, makes a huge number of changes, many of which barely have been debated:

Tax cuts. The committee nearly doubled the $343 million income tax cut Gov. Scott Walker had proposed in February. It would flatten the state's income tax brackets from five to four, putting households earning $28,650 a year into the same category as those earning $315,460 a year. As a result, the tax cut is heavily targeted to those who earn the most.

School vouchers. Walker had proposed expanding private school vouchers to poor-performing districts. Instead, the JFC plan would expand the voucher program statewide, but with tight caps on student enrollment - 1,000 students total, with not more than 1 percent of the students in any district participating.

Medicaid. The proposed budget rejects the pleas of health care administrators and advocates of the poor to at least temporarily accept the Medicaid expansion until we can be confident that there's a functioning federal insurance exchange available to Wisconsin residents.

Payday loans. The budget would allow these lenders to send debts to collection after only 10 days, rather than 40 days as current law states. It is hard to see why Wisconsin needed to give more leverage to companies that already depend on predatory lending practices for their business.

This budget was completed under dramatically different circumstances than the last two biennial budgets, and the fact that the state's structural deficit has largely been eliminated is an important step forward.

After the massive cuts to education last time, this budget increases public school spending by $150 per student per year. That's an important advance. It also boosts transportation aid to counties and municipalities. These moves will help local governments provide services we depend on - and also will help to protect the taxpayer from local tax hikes.

The committee also, by the way, passed a Democrat-authored provision that would make the kringle the official state pastry. Bipartisanship, ladies and gentlemen.

The nearly $70 billion biennial budget will be debated in the Assembly, likely in about two weeks, and will go to the Senate after that. The governor still has the power to make line-item veto changes to the budget, though with Republican control throughout the process it seems that dramatic changes are unlikely.

-Wausau Daily Herald

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Other view: Sweeping changes in budget bill

The first thing to say about the budget bill that came out of the state's budget committee on June 5 is that the process stinks.

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